Letter: Repurposing the Vance Monument

Graphic by Lori Deaton

While everyone is focused on the Vance Monument, no one is talking about the even more obnoxious monstrosity directly across the street. The former BB&T building is going to be the most visible monument to commercialism and greed in this town. Why weren’t the developers forced to remove a few floors to make the building more appropriate to human scale?

In that vein, here is my idea for the Vance Monument: Have a local sculptor create a giant hand at the base; fingers folded to create the impression that the obelisk is a raised middle finger. And be sure it is oriented in the direction of City Council. This will be a historic reminder of how they have sold out this city to corporate, and apparently, their own greed.

— Ron Greenberg
Weaverville

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3 thoughts on “Letter: Repurposing the Vance Monument

  1. Brandon Van Every

    Perhaps people can recognize the formal aesthetic value of the obelisk, being a nice piece of stone to look at, as opposed to its historical significance. In that vein, I really wouldn’t mind seeing the prominent letters VANCE removed from the thing. I don’t have a particular reason to care about or glorify him. I wouldn’t miss him. I didn’t even have any idea who he was until the hubbub about how awful he was supposed to have been. I wouldn’t mind a plaque near the monument saying, “This was originally built to honor Vance, who did such-and-such. In 201x the monument was repurposed as the Asheville Obelisk,” or whatever catchy name any of you can think up.

  2. Deplorable Infidel

    Simply change it to memorialize the millions of babies killed and sold by Planned Parenthood which would be a amazing demonstration across the world…

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